Half an hour ago, I finally got the clippers out to cut the old branches off my little courtyard garden.  As I was cutting it, my little daughter asked me why was I cutting the plants I love.  Good question I replied.  The reason is that if I want the plants to grow, I have to cut off the dead wood at the bottom and some of the branches that are making it heavy and not allowing it to grow.

As I continued to clip (almost hack) into my garde, I realised that it was the same analogy I am feeling currently with some people in my life.  I want to hang around people who I grow with and are evolved so I can learn and teach in that relationship.  My garden is like my life in the sense that I dont have a lot of spare time in a week between a young family, growing businesses and finding time for me and with my precious soul mate.

And I am not doing that.  I am hanging onto some people who I like but are not helping me grow.  I am hanging onto some dead wood and some branches that are weighing me down.  And like my garden, I need to be mindful of the associations in my life so I can grow like my garden.

Do you have associations in your life that are dead wood or weighing you down?

Today I had the priviledge to speak at the CPA Spotlight event in Sydney where 200 people gathered to listen to the female leadership journey with panel members including Ruth Medd, Suzanne Mercier, Jennifer Dalitz and Alicia Fortinberry.

Ruth spoke about the average 17% pay difference in gender across the various industries.  As its not one particular area, this number staggered and embarassed me.  How can we allow this to occur in our 2011 western culture?  We are not a third world country where you would expect this kind of difference to be normal.  We live in Australia.

And women know this statistic.  I have worked with a number of them as coaching clients through various organistions.  When I have raised this as a coaching dicussion, most of them are grateful for what they have and tell me they dont need more.  When I ask them would they like more to have on thier family or something else, they reply 'yes'.  Yet they are unwilling to ask thier boss in thier organisation.

When it comes to equality for thier peers or thier staff, they are often the first to jump onto that and make sure equality prevails.  So is the question that women dont value themself as highly as they do others?  Perhaps.  Or that they are better at giving then receiving which says to me there is an imbalance.  Women must get better at this.

Perhaps they need better negotiation skills to better negotiate thier salaries up front when they are offered jobs or at salary review times.  And in my experience they definitely need to better market themself so thier boss and peers know what an outstanding job they have done.

Either way, I feel very passionate that we must change that statistic.  What are your thoughts? 

Last week I got asked to buy a cafe. I was in a cafe I regularly go to buying a coffee and the owner broke down crying as she has a sick child and wanting to move asap home. She asked me if I wanted to buy it off her.

She wanted to walk in walk out for $10,000. I got really excited and decided that I had always wanted to own a cafe/restaurant for a long time and this was it! My love of food and business could be combined.

I also really wanted to help this family. What I also know is that I don't know anything about running a cafe – only going to one. And although I have my views on what people could do better and do well, I thought the best thing would be a joint venture (JV) with someone already running a brilliantly successful cafe.

As I spoke to my first choice and then my second and then my third, all of them said it was intense work. One said they were not ready for expansion with their current team, one was getting out of hospitality and the other warned me from getting into it. I was really disappointed. Why did this opportunity come in the first place?

After some reflection, I realised that opportunities come in all the time when you get your passions sorted but the timing has to be right as well. There is too much going on in my life at present and this was going to complicate it even more where I would compromise the quality of what I was doing.

Someday it would be right but now is not the right time. I also realised that I wanted to help this family which I am not in the position to do currently and I cannot jeopardise mine in the meantime.

I wanted to send this reflection to you as once you have your passions and opportunities come in, assess them with timing also.

This post is not about a religious view as I am not a Hare Krishna.  Although I am Indian, I have avoided things like visiting Hare Krishna as I wanted to be perceived as non Indian for a long time.  When you move to a new country, I wanted to be accepted for being more of an Aussie seeing that I have lived here since I was 11.

And when it came to things like Jehovas Witness or Hare Krishnas, I will admit to being judgemental in the past.  I felt that they were trying to tell me what to do - to convert to them. 

Yesterday I had a different experience when I visited the Hare Krishna temple in Cessnock, New South Wales. It was very peaceful and they served us a beautiful meal to the whole family.  When I asked a couple of the people on how they live and one of them spoke non stop for 10 mins, I realised that they are passionate about Krishna thier GOD.  They are not trying to convert me, that is my stuff about me.

It made me reflect on how many things on the outside look 'strange' but when you explore them some of the beliefs were the same.  We are the same and because of my own lack of self esteem and not being wanted to be seen as 'Indian', I had removed myself too far from experiences like this where I had a great time.  My kids got to touch and pat calves and my husband who is Australian got to experience something like this for the first time.

Explore things that are different so you can discover other people's passions and reflect on yours.

Hare Krishna!

Yesterday, I had two incidences of yelling.  One was exciting as I was watching my sporting team win by 1 point in the highlights of the AFL (Aussie Rules) -this was exciting as my team is not doing so well this year.

The second one was the kids were playing up all morning from around 5:30 am. By the time I got to 7:30am and they werent listening, I yelled at them and felt like the worst mum instantly.  After apologising to both my kids, I was reflecting in the couple of minutes in the shower as I was preparing for work.

None of those people heard me. I was feeling passionate when I was yelling.  I would call it passionate yelling but no one else was listening - not the TV or the kids.

It made me reflect on how much energy we spend wanting to express something and no one is there hearing you. 

Does this happen to you?  Have you made noises with your work or partner or kids and things are not changing.  From my reflection, I have decided to check if someone is listening before I spend the energy yelling next time.

Also would love to hear what topics you want to discuss around Passion.  Email me at shivani@passionatepeopleinstitute.com